This invention relates generally to methods and apparatus for managing a transportation system, and more specifically to methods and apparatus for generating and exchanging data to manage the transportation system.
Many means of transportation exist today to deliver goods from a point of origination to a destination point. Such transportation means of vehicles include barges, trucks, planes and railroads. A shipper may use one or more transportation means to deliver a product from a factory to the actual customer. In order to answer questions from the customer as to a status of the delivery, owners of these transportation means have developed methods for estimating the location of the means used to deliver the goods. Using this system, a company may use this information to estimate a time of delivery.
Unfortunately, as a result of many unknown factors, the accuracy of the estimate may vary widely and the transportation means owners are usable to learn from the data. It would therefore be desirable to provide a method and apparatus that generates and collects data from a plurality of sensors or devices to effectively manage the transportation system. In addition, by properly analyzing the data, trouble sources are identified. By eliminating or reducing these trouble sources or impact, the efficiency of the transportation system is improved.